Voters should hold the administration accountable for its dangerous disclosures

There is about as much reason to investigate the Obama administration’s leaks of classified information to the New York Times as there is to investigate who won the last Super Bowl. This is not a whodunit calling for meticulous gumshoe work. We can just read the newspaper’s fawning accounts of Obama at war instead.

By now we’re familiar with the legend-making tales: of the peerlessly erudite commander-in-chief thumbing through Aquinas and Augustine with one hand while flipping through his “kill list” (enemy combatants he designates for death) with the other; of a Barack Obama who had the courage to continue the cyber-war sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program, an effort begun by George W. Bush (whose administration had the good sense to keep it secret). What is noteworthy is that, when it comes to disclosing sources, the Times reporters can’t help themselves. They name names: current administration insiders such as national-security adviser Thomas Donilon, and Obama intimates such as former White House chief of staff William Daley, who has transitioned seamlessly to the Obama reelection effort. Even when the Times withholds names, we are treated to firsthand accounts of critical meetings in which the president and a handful of top intelligence officials deliberate over the most sensitive matters of national defense.